


Barking up the Wrong Tree

by George_Benji



Category: RWBY
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Fluffy, Friendship, M/M, Team SSSN - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 12:52:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16475921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/George_Benji/pseuds/George_Benji
Summary: Neptune and Ilia become friends. Shenanigans ensue.





	Barking up the Wrong Tree

“So, you come around here often?” Neptune asked with a wink and some finger guns.

 

“Do I… come around here often? You mean the train station?” the girl Neptune was currently trying to woo did not seem impressed.

 

“Uh.. Well, I guess… Um..” An awkward silence hung in the air as Neptune grappled trying to find something to say next. “I’m Neptune, by the way. What’s your name?”

 

The girl eyed Neptune up and down, seemingly not impressed. “Ilia.”

 

“That’s… a really pretty name.” Dropping his flirting act, he continued, trying to be as friendly and likeable as he could be, sweet smile and all, “Did you just come here to say bye to Blake?”

 

“Uh, kind of.”

 

“That’s cool. I came here with Sun, we were going to head to Vacuo in a bit. We’re going to meet up with the rest of our team, I’m pretty excited to be honest.”

 

“Yeah?” Ilia had a kind of half smile.

 

“Yeah. So where were you going after this?”

 

“I’m not exactly sure yet. Maybe back home.”

 

“Oh! Where are you from?”

 

“Menagerie.”

 

Neptune was a little taken aback by that for a moment. “Is that the island for Faunas?”

 

“Yeah. Hey, listen, I really have to go right now…” Ilia was moving backward slowly.

 

“Oh. Okay.. Wait, here, can I give you my number if you ever want to hang out?”

 

Ilia thought about that for a moment before agreeing and then rushing off. When Neptune turned back to Sun, Black was gone and Sun was laughing.

 

“Didn’t go as well as you hoped, huh?”

 

“It went about as well as I hoped.” Neptune puffed out his chest a little bit.

 

“Wait, what?”

 

“Yeah, I gave her my number.”

 

“You… Gave her… Your number…” there was a quiet sigh from Sun before he snaked his arm around Neptune’s shoulders. “Ignoring whatever that was, let’s head to Vacuo!”

 

\--

 

Neptune got a text the next week. “Hey, this is Ilia.” It wasn’t much, and Neptune had kind of mostly forgotten about her by then.

 

“Oh hey, did you want to hang out?”

 

“Yeah, when are you free?”

 

“I’m not really doing anything right now.”

 

“Okay. There’s a coffee shop near where you’re staying with your team in Vacuo, right?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“We can meet there in 20.”

 

“Okay.”

 

This wasn’t a date. There’s no way this is a date. Totally not. No way. That’s not at all what this seems like. “I’m headed out to go meet up with Ilia,” Neptune called as he ran out the house’s door to go catch the bus.

 

Neptune got to the coffee shop first and decided to order himself a hot chocolate while he waited for Ilia. Spacing out and looking out the window, he was startled when Ilia finally joined him in his booth. “Hey, I didn’t know what you like so I was going to wait for you to order.”

 

“Oh, you don’t have to.” Ilia glanced over at the coffee menu briefly before getting up to go order. After she was done, she sat back down with Neptune to wait for her drink.

 

“So what’d you order?”

 

“Just a hot chocolate.”

 

“Holy shit! Same!” Neptune held up his cup in a cheers sort of gesture and Ilia giggled a little bit. After a brief moment, Neptune said, “Wait, weren’t you headed to Minstrail? What are you doing in Vacuo?”

 

“Oh, I was there for a few days to get some stuff set up, but there wasn’t much else to do after that…”

 

“Haha, did you miss me or something?” Neptune winked, and Ilia shot him a glare. “So how do you like Vacuo?”

 

“It’s… big… There aren’t very many people living here, are there?”

 

“What do you mean? It’s pretty packed, here.”

 

“I just mean, compared to Mintrail it’s very different.”

 

“Well.. yeah. There aren’t a lot of faunas here either, are there?” Neptune was just pointing this out more for himself, having not really noticed this fact earlier. 

 

“Not really,” Ilia laughed. She then got called to pick up her drink and cheered Neptune back when he held his drink out again.

 

“Is that really common?”

 

“Is what really common?”

 

“Being one of the only faunas in a place?” Neptune was looking around the coffee shop, and there didn’t seem to be any other faunas in the place.

 

“Um… I’m used to Minstrail where there aren’t any humans, so I guess not.”

 

“What’s your thing?”

 

“‘Thing’?” Ilia stared back with a blank face.

 

“Yeah. When I see other guys with dyed hair, specifically blue, but still, we’ll just kind of smile at each other. What do you do when you see other faunas in public?”

 

“Again, there’s a lot of faunas where I’m from so I don’t really do anything to literally every faunas I see.”

 

“Oh yeah.” After a beat, “Do you think Sun has a thing? He and Blake probably smiled at each other when they met.”

 

“...Possibly…” Ilia was eyeing Neptune oddly and he couldn’t place his finger on what exactly she was doing, other than she looked like she was trying to solve a riddle.

 

“OOH! We can have a thing!”

 

“I mean, we could.”

 

“Okay, so secret hand shake, a nod, or what? What are you thinking, I’m thinking we nod at each other like-” and then Neptune’s face turned into a stoic look for a moment as he tilted his head up a little bit at Ilia before breaking back into a smile, “see!”

 

“Okay.” Ilia did it back before cracking up herself. Their conversation flowed easily and soon they’d been there for about two hours and figured they should head back.

 

“It was nice hanging out with you, text me next time you’re free, I’m usually not up to much,” Neptune quickly corrected himself, “I mean, usually I have tons of stuff to do.. I’m just on a vacation right now… You know.. Relaxing.”

 

“Yeah I got it. Take care… bro…” Ilia patted Neptune's shoulder and the two parted ways.

 

“SUN! You will not believe what happened today!!” Neptune shouted as he entered Sun's childhood home.

 

“What, did you strike out again?” Sun poked his head into the living room before continuing on into the kitchen, Neptune following.

 

“Um. Kind of? Not really. I didn’t flirt with Ilia today, if that’s what you mean.” Noticing the oven was on, Neptune stiffed the air, “What are you baking?”

 

“Sugar cookies, and what you mean by that?”

 

“I just mean that me and Ilia are just friends!” Neptune puffed his chest out a little bit at that.

 

“‘Just friends’?” Sun snickered, “Since where you  _ just friends _ with someone?”

 

“Well, I mean, I’m just friends with you…” Neptune felt a little weird about considering himself and Sun just friends. He felt even weirder when Sun just focused on his cookies and mumbled an I guess.

 

“You don’t thi…” Sun trailed off, looking from his cookies over at Neptune.

 

“No, I don’t ever think. Next question.” Neptune gave a lopsided smile, desperate to get a different air about the room.

 

Sun smiled back.

 

“OH! I forgot the most important part!! So while Ilia and me had hot chocolate-”

 

“Pussy.”

 

“-we talked about faunas. I had questions for Ilia about faunas but because she’s from Menagerie she couldn’t really answer any of the questions.”

 

“Lucky for you, I’m your best bro and I’ve only been to Menagerie once.”

 

“So, what I was wondering was if fanaus what a thing that they do when they see each other in public. Like when I see other guys with blue or dyed hair, I’ll smile at them.”

 

“Oh..” Sun scratched the back of his neck and thought about the question for a minute. “I mean, I guess I’ll smile too? I haven’t really thought about this…”

 

“It’s okay!”

 

“Hm. Well, why don’t we make up our own thing to do with each other-”

 

“Way ahead of you there,” Neptune cut Sun off, “I’ve already got the first four moves of our handshake down.”

 

“Nice!”

 

\--

 

This time only two days passed before Neptune got another text from Ilia. “Hey, I’m at the mall in Vacuo and I need some help shopping.” 

 

Neptune was at the mall within the minute.

 

When Neptune found Ilia, he did their nod and she nodded back. They both cracked up before Ilia explained that she needed help finding some shoes. Not any in particular, she was just looking at shoes and didn’t trust her own fashion sense.

 

They had fun going from store to store looking at all kind of non-shoe clothing and trying on all sorts of outfits. They didn’t really talk about anything important, just banter and laughs. 

 

After a few hours of fucking around, they were walking through the mall, eating ice cream, mid-laugh, when quite possibly the most beautiful woman Neptune had ever seen passed by him and Ilia. She had the biggest set of deer horns, and Neptune only paused for a moment to marvel in her beauty.

 

Ilia on the other hand, was blushing madly, and had stopped walking to stare in awe.

 

“You okay?” Neptune teased her. Ilia tried forming words, but was unable to. After the woman had passed, Ilia was still starstruck and staring where the woman had been. “Ilia, you okay?” Neptune was a little more worried than teasing, but he was still teasing just  a little bit. 

 

“Y-Yeah… Yeah…” Ilia was blushing more and more with each second.

 

Neptune had just started connecting the dots. “Oh.. Oh. OH. OH MY GOD! Ilia, are you lesbian?”

 

“Yeah…”

 

“No  _ wonder _ you were impervious to my various charms.”

 

“And which charms were those again?”

 

From there, Neptune and Ilia kept hanging out every other day basically. Ilia had been to Sun’s house to play video games with Sage, Scarlet and Neptune, she’d been invited to train with the four of them, and she’d been invited to Sage’s birthday even. Neptune continued thinking about sexuality and his own, until during one of his and Ilia’s weekly slumber parties, he asked her about it.

 

“Hey. Ilia?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You awake?” The two were wrapped in sleeping bag on the floor of Sun’s basement.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Can I ask you a question?”

 

“...Yeah.”

 

“Why did you pause?”

 

“I didn’t want to just say ‘yeah’ again.”

 

“Oh. Okay.” Neptune flipped over to face towards Ilia. “How did you know you were gay?”

 

“Um. Okay, this is a little embarrassing to admit, but, I used to have a crush on Blake.”

 

“No, she’s hot, it makes sense.” The two laughed a little bit. “How did you know that you liked her as anything other than just as a friend?”

 

“Uh… I don't know, I just felt different with her than anyone else. To be fair, I’ve never had very many friends.”

 

“Oh.”

 

\--

 

So maybe Neptune had a crush on Sun. Just maybe though, okay. Jarring and terrifying as this fact was, Neptune now had no idea what he was going to do. He literally cannot talk to Sun ever again, probably. He can’t have Sun thinking that he’s a dingus.

 

Oh God.

 

Being bi, or queer or gay or whatever it is that Neptune might be is going to ruin his friendship with Sun. First of all, how can you possibly be attracted to boys and  _ not _ be completely, totally, utterly, head-over-heels in love with Sun??

 

Anyway, this epiphany led Neptune to avoid Sun… And keep avoiding him… For two weeks. The longest two weeks in Neptune’s entire life.

 

Sun was very clearly catching on to what was going on. Sun isn’t stupid or anything. Well, at least Neptune thought, Sun on the other hand was busy interrogating Ilia.

 

“Hey, do you know what’s up with Neptune?” Sun asked through his scroll. 

 

“Hi Sun, and you’re gonna need to be a little bit more specific.”

 

“I mean that he’s been like avoiding me or something, I don’t know…”

 

“Oh.”

 

“That’s it? ‘Oh’? Do you know what's going on with him? Is he okay?” Sun was pacing back and forth in his bedroom.

 

“Sun… Do you mean that you really don’t know?” Ilia was quiet and it only Sun that much more mad.

 

“Know what?! Why my best friend won’t even speak to me, but he’s suddenly super close to you?!”

 

“You’re kidding, right?”

 

“No! Why would I joke about this?!”

 

“Sun, I am so sorry. I can’t tell you what’s going on… I- I’m sorry.” Ilia then hung up before Sun was able to ask any more questions.

 

From there Sun went on to ask Sage and Scarlet about Neptune. Neither of them knew anything, they just agreed that Neptune was acting kind of weird. Sun Then moved on to ask each member of team RWBY if they knew anything. None of them did, Blake and Weiss offered some advice but none of it was very useful. Sun kept moving on to team JNR, Nora and Ren each as useless as everyone else had been thus far. Jaune claimed that he didn’t know anything, but Sun was certain that there was more to it.

 

Seconds after Jaune got off call with Sun, he called Neptune.

 

“Hello?” Neptune answered on the first ring.

 

“Hey, dude, what’s going on?” 

 

“I’m sorry? I don’t follow what you’re talking about.”

 

“Sun’s worried about you. He thinks something’s up.”

 

“Oh. That…” Neptune sucked some air in through his teeth.

 

“Yeah. What’s up with you. You two like love each other, right?”

 

“Um.” Neptune’s heart raced at that. _Love. Love. Love._ “Yeah, something like that.”

 

“So why won’t you talk to him?”

 

“Um.”  _ Love. Love. _

 

“Is it about your insecurities?”

 

_ Love. Love. Love. Love. _

 

“Neptune, are you nervous to talk to Sun because you like him?”

 

“Y-yeah.” Neptune’s voice cracked a little bit.

 

“Why? He obviously likes you too.”

 

“What.” What?

 

“Yeah. He knows you the most out of like everyone. There’s nothing to be worried about. Everyone can tell that Sun likes you. If he thought you in a bad way, there’s no way he’d still be your friend.”

 

“He… How do you know this?” Neptune didn’t want to get his hopes up.

 

“It’s literally written all over his face? He’s constantly staring at you, and he’ll do anything for you.”

 

“He’s just like that with… everyone… though… Okay, I see what you mean.”

 

“Yeah. You got this dude, just go talk to him about it. It’ll go great.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“No problem.” Jaune then hung up and Neptune decided to go find Sun.

 

Before Neptune could exit Sun’s basement, Sun bared through and blocked the door. “We need to talk.”

 

“Agreed.” Neptune nodded in agreement and had to stop himself from trying to escape the conversation.

 

“So what’s been going on with you?” Sun crossed his arms and stared Neptune down, but Neptune was able to tell that Sun was just worried.

 

“Hah, so uh, funny thing that is…” Neptune started inching backwards, eager to escape this conversation. Sun shot him a glare and he succumbed. “Um.. So I’ve been hanging out with Ilia a lot lately-”

 

“Yeah, I know.”

 

“-and she’s gay-”

 

“ _ Yeah, I know _ .”

 

“-and I asked her a bit about that. So turns out, I might be a little bit gay.”

 

Sun scoffed and repeated “a little”. “Here, this is a sitting down conversation,” and Sun took Neptune’s arm to lead him to the couch in the basement. “Why were you avoiding me because of that?”

 

“Well, uh, there’s uh, you know… I um…” Neptune was fiddling with his thumbs nervously. Sun placed his hand on Neptune’s knee and Neptune followed his hand up to his face and this is  _ Sun _ he’d talking to. His junior detective partner, the boy he’s snuck out his dorms with, the boy who he goes home to every single time a girl blows him off. The same boy he’s fallen asleep against, and asks for anytime he’s sick.

 

“Neptune?”

 

“Sun…”

 

There was a soft sort of silence, Sun waiting for Neptune to be able to finish his thought.

 

“I figured out that I like you.” Sun quirked an eyebrow. “I mean, like  _ really like _ you.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“And when was this?”

 

“About two weeks ago now.”

 

“Ah.” Sun grabbed Neptune’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m assuming Ilia helped with this discovery?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Okay. Well, you already know that I like you-”

 

“Wait, what?”

 

“Oh my God, Neptune.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! <3
> 
> find me on tumblr (georgebenji & georgebenjiart)


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